Our lives are busy and stressful. With the business and the stress comes a lot of emotions. We get anxious, overwhelmed, tired, overworked, sad, and even just plain frazzled sometimes. When we feel these emotions, we often times turn to food. We may eat to take our mind off of whatever is stressing us out at the moment and focus, on something menial, or it may just be out of habit. Food is satisfying. When we have negative emotions in our lives we want something that will satisfy us in a positive manner, because food gives our hunger that satisfaction, we expect it to do the same with all of our other emotions. Emotional eating can lead to weight gain, and can increase the negative feelings that we are feeling about our bodies if we aren't careful. These tips can help you to avoid emotional eating, and help you maintain a healthy attitude about food.
1. Learn to spot your triggers. Make a list of what situations tend to send you into an emotional eating frenzy. Is it Boredom? Social situations? Stress? Sadness? Guilt? Routine? Part of knowing how to overcome this habit is knowing how to recognize it. You have to learn to try not to fill that void with food. It may satisfy you momentarily, but as soon as you are done swallowing all your problems will resurface. Learning to address the real issue will help you to remedy it correctly.
2. Try to distract yourself. Find alternatives to eating that you can do when you are wanting to satisfy your impulse for food. Go get a drink of water instead. Do some push ups or lunges. Go walk to the mail box and back. Whatever it takes to get your mind off of wanting to eat.
3. Complete deprivation won't help you. If you are trying to cut unhealthy foods from your diet, emotional eating can easily arise when you feel like you are deprived of your favorite foods. Allowing an indulgence every now and then, in moderation, can cut out those deprived feelings. If you feel complete deprivation, your brain may obsess over whatever it is that you're depriving yourself of, causing you to do nothing but think about that food.This isn't a healthy pattern either. If you're dying to have something, have a bite or two and wait to see if you're satisfied. If you are then be done. Listen to your internal cues. Be very careful not to let that bite turn into a bout of overeating.
4. Determine if you are really hungry. Try very hard to be alert to your hunger cues. If you aren't hungry and are just wanting to eat something out of habit, try chewing gum. It can help to occupy your mouth without the calories.
5. Make your eating habits a healthy lifestyle and not a "diet." Crash diets don't work long-term. They deprive you, and leave you wanting to eat all the foods you, "can't have." Stop dwelling on what you can't eat, and focus on what you can eat. Fill your pantry with good, healthy choices. Making healthy eating a lifestyle will do more than just help you lose weight, you'll feel better, and your family will too.
6. Stop making food a reward. Find non-food ways to reward yourself, your kids, your family, etc. If you are trying to eat healthy, plan out what your rewards will be ahead of time. If you have been itching to buy that new pair of shoes, set a goal that you can purchase them if you complete certain number of workouts. Reward your kids with stickers, money, fun outings, etc. If you create the habit of having food as a reward for your kids it will become the expected and can set them into an unhealthy eating pattern.
Remember that food is fuel for your body, so eat good foods to fuel yourself, not just to fill time. You wouldn't go to fill up your car with gas and then stand there and try to fill your car as it overflows, just because you're bored. Don't do the same thing to your body. The real reward will come when you look and feel the way you want to. Emotional eating occurs when you trade what you want most, for what you want at the moment. Don't give in to the quick fix, instant gratification mindset that has our society plagued. Determine to rid yourself of your emotional eating habits, and in doing so, allow yourself to see results.
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